Saturday, January 21, 2012

Some inspiration for worldbuilding

by
Nicole Murphy

First, good news - there's going to be a brand new gadda story seeing print. The Black Star Killer will be published in Damnation and Dames, a paranormal noir anthology from Australian publisher Ticonderoga Press that will be out later this year. The Black Star Killer uses the gadda that I invented for my novels, but instead of being set in the modern age it's set in Chicago in the 1920s. Great fun.

I've just returned from seventeen days in beautiful New Zealand. The differences between NZ and Australia are huge - the colour, for starters. NZ is green. This is a wonder to us in shades of brown Oz.

We did a bit of touring around and saw some remarkable sights and I thought I'd share them with you.

This is Rainbow Falls, near Kerikeri. Right by the side of the road, just walk a few metres and you're seeing the power and majesty of nature at its finest.

This is Tane Mahuta - Lord of the Forest. The largest kauri in NZ (50 metres high, 18 metres in girth) and thought to be around 2000 years old. It's so big, there's an entire separate environment of plants and animals living in the canopy. One of the most magnificent things I've ever seen.

Some of the forest near Tane Mahuta - just stunning.

The amazing bark of a kauri tree - I just loved the patterns and has different it looked to regular bark.

And this is the inside of a toilet! The entire thing is done up with these tiles, with all sorts of strange mosaics and artefacts within. Very weird.

I hope one of these pictures inspires you and if not, that you've enjoyed some of the natural (and not-so-natural) wonders of New Zealand.